History of the city of Dayton and Montgomery County, Ohio, Volume I, Part 4

Author: Drury, Augustus Waldo, 1851-1935; S.J. Clarke Publishing Company, pub
Publication date: 1909
Publisher: Chicago : S. J. Clarke Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 966

USA > Ohio > Montgomery County > Dayton > History of the city of Dayton and Montgomery County, Ohio, Volume I > Part 4

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DAYTON AND MONTGOMERY COUNTY

twees. The proper home for the Miami and kindred tribes was along the Wabash and Maumee and from Detroit to Chicago. Some of the Miamis had been drawn to the Miami valleys and as far as the Scioto by desire to trade with the English, who offered the Indians better terms than did the French. But finally, siding with the French and suffering reverses, almost all of the number thus enticed from their old home withdrew about 1763 to the Wabash and Maumee and the Shaw- nees took their place. The Weas, Eel river Indians, Piankeshaws, and Kickapoos lived along the Wabash and the territories adjacent. They were the kindred and allies of the Miamis. The Ottawas lived about Detroit, the Chippewas about Saginaw Bay, the Pottawatomies far to the north and west. The name Maumee is only another form for Miami. The Miamis represented a powerful confederacy of northwestern Indians.

Estimates of the number of warriors in different tribes at the time of the Revo- lution are: for the Iroquois, mostly in New York, two thousand; Delawares, six hundred; Wyandots, three hundred; Shawnees, four hundred; Miamis, six hun- dred, the larger number in the territory of the present state of Indiana, their allies numbering perhaps eight hundred more: Pottawatomies, four hundred; Ottawas, . three thousand near Detroit and five thousand farther north. The estimate of the Ottawas is often put much lower. For the Chippewas, who were very numerous, it would be hazardous to attempt to give numbers.

The best known chiefs of some of the tribes were the following: Delawares, White eyes, Captain Pipe and Bukongehelas; Shawnees, Cornstalk, Black Hoof, Blue Jacket, and Tecumseh ; Wyandots, Tarke, called the Crane, and Leather Lips ; Miamis, Little Turtle and Le Gris; Ottawas, Pontiac. If we should name chiefs with Iroquois connections, we would name the Half King and Logan, the Mingo chief.

INDIAN TREATIES.

In 1768 at Fort Stanwix, on the present site of Rome, New York, a treaty was entered into between the representatives of the crown and the Six Nations along with tributary Delawares and Shawnees by which the western line of Penn- sylvania and the Ohio river were practically made the Indian boundary line.

In 1784 when the Confederated States were entering on the responsibility of dealing with the Indians, another treaty was entered into at Fort Stanwix by which the Six Nations gave up their old indefinite claim to the territory west of the Pennsylvania line. In name it gave a title as the Six Nations had claimed the right to the land by conquest. The cession was rather of the nature of a quit claim.

In 1785 a real cession was made in a treaty concluded at Fort McIntosh be- tween the general government and the Wyandots, Chippewas, Delawares and Ottawas by which an Indian territory was constituted south of Lake Erie, bounded as follows: Beginning at the mouth of the river Cuyahoga and run thence up the said river to the portage between that and the Tuscarawas branch of the Musk- ingum ; then down the said branch to the forks at the crossing place above Fort Laurens ; then westerly to the portage of the Big (Great) Miami which runs into the Ohio, at the mouth of which branch the fort stood which was taken by the

DAYTON AND MONTGOMERY COUNTY

French in 1752 ; then along said portage to the Great Miami or Ome river (Mau- mee) and down the southeast side of the same to its mouth. South of the boun- dary named, at least so far as the Wyandots and Delawares were concerned, the land was ceded to the United States, the western boundary extending at least to the Great Miami river.

In 1786, with the aim to secure a title between the Great Miami and the Wa- bash, a council was held at Fort Finney, erected for the purpose of the council on land at the left of the mouth of the Great Miami river. A treaty was concluded by which the south line of the Fort McIntosh treaty was modified somewhat toward its western limit, and carried from the Great Miami over to a branch of the Wabash and thence to the Wabash proper, and by inference to the mouth of the Wabash. This interpretation was seriously contended for even after the Wayne treaty had drawn a nearer line. Members of the Delaware, Wyandot and Shawnee tribes were induced to sign the treaty, but it related more strictly to the Shawnees, who were to take their position north of the line named. The treaty was scarcely more than a pretense, and the Indians never intended to comply with it.

A more real treaty was that concluded at Fort Harmar in 1789 after General St. Clair had come to the Northwest Territory as its governor. The treaty con- firmed the treaty of 1784 so far as the Six Nations were concerned, and the treaty of Fort McIntosh so far as the Wyandots, Delawares, Ottawas, Chippewas, Potta- watomies and Sacs were concerned. It will be noticed that the Miamis, Shawnees and others of the western Indians are not named. It was reserved for the treaty of Greenville, which will be noticed later, to bring under the obligation of a treaty all of the Indian tribes interested. In connection with the treaties named larger or smaller amounts in money or goods were paid to the Indians as a consideration for the cession of their lands.

MARCH OF SETTLEMENTS.

We have now reached a point where we must take notice of the march of settle- ments into the country north of the Ohio. The first white man to leave an ac- count of a visit to the Ohio country was Christopher Gist, who, as a prospector for the Ohio company formed in 1748, made in 1750-1 a trip to the central part of the present state of Ohio, extending his journey as far as the strong Miami village of Pickawillany, about three miles north of the present town of Piqua. It is of interest to the people of Montgomery county as it is now, to note the description given by Gist of the country a short distance to the north. He says: "It wants nothing but cultivation to make it a most delightful country. The land upon the Great Miami is very rich, level and well timbered-some of the finest meadows that can be. The grass here grows to a great height on the clear fields of which there are a great number and the bottoms are full of white clover, wild rye and blue grass." He says that the land abounded "with turkeys, deer, elk, and most sorts of game, particularly buffaloes, thirty or forty of which are frequently seen feeding in one meadow." Thirty-six years later, James Monroe, after a western visit, writing to Jefferson, said: "A great part of the country is miserably poor, especially near Lakes Michigan and Erie, and that upon the Mississippi and Illi-

DAYTON AND MONTGOMERY COUNTY

nois consists of extensive plains which have not had from appearances, and will not have, a single bush on them for ages. The districts, therefore, within which these fall will perhaps never contain a sufficient number of inhabitants to entitle them to membership in the confederacy." Only a few years after Gist's visit, Franklin, who had thoroughly informed himself, wrote of the country back of the Alleglienies as a region "now well known both to the English and French to be. one of the finest in North America for the extreme fertility of the land, healthy temperature of the air, the mildness of the climate, the plenty of hunting, fish- ing and fowling, the facility of trade with the Indians and the vast convenience of inland navigation." The landless people of other regions availed themselves of the first opportunity to cross over to this new land of promise. The sovereignty of the United States being recognized in 1783, Virginia making her cession in 1784, and the act for surveying and sale being adopted in 1785, it seemed that the appointed time had come to occupy the land.

But before these provisions could be carried into effect, there was already an irregular occupancy of the country. Ensign Armstrong, who was sent to expel these squatters, reported that people were moving in "by forties and fifties," that there were "more than fifteen hundred on the rivers Miami and Scioto" and a larger number at nearer places. The most remarkable thing is that a call was sent out under date of March 12, 1785, for the election of delegates to a convention for forming a constitution, the voting places being at the mouth of the Miami river, at the mouth of the Scioto, on the Muskingum and at the dwelling house of Jonas Menzons, the convention to meet on the 20th of the month above named. Ac- companying the advertisement was a bitter protest against the right of congress to interfere with persons settling as they might choose. Some of these settlers yielded to the orders of the government and withdrew, some maintained their foothold till regular settlements were made, but the greater number were of the transient class who ever go in advance of permanent occupation and leave little trace behind.

THE OHIO COMPANY.

The regular occupation began with the formation by New Englanders of the Ohio Company in 1787 and the settlement made by that company at Marietta the following year. The ordinance of congress provided for a grant "of nearly five million acres of land amounting to $3,500,000, one million and a half acres for the Ohio Company and the remainder for a private speculation," said speculation being passed over to the Scioto Company. The land in the seven ranges of townships next to the Pennsylvania line was the first surveyed and was in part transferred to the different states and in part sold by the government directly. Then, turning west, we come in order to the Ohio purchase, the Scioto purchase, and the Virginia military lands lying between the Scioto and the Little Miami.

THE MIAMI LANDS.

In the lands immediately next, lying between the two Miamis, citizens of Mont- gomery county are directly interested, as a large part of Montgomery county lies within these bounds. We have already noticed the interest of men connected with

DAYTON AND MONTGOMERY COUNTY

the second expedition of Clark, in lands at the juncture of Mad river and the Great Miami. In 1786, in consequence of Indian depredations, Colonel Logan, with Col- onel Robert Patterson in command of one of the brigades, led a successful expedi- tion against the Shawnee towns at the head of Mad river. On returning, the expedition came upon a party of Indians at the mouth of Mad river, Tecumseh, then about fourteen years of age, being with them. The Indians were quickly dispersed. This was the second encounter with the Indians on the site of Dayton. Here the members of the expedition remained a few days examining the land. Another circumstance awakened interest in the lands between the Miamis. Ben- jamin Stites, of New Jersey, later of Redstone, Pennsylvania, descended the Ohio in the spring of 1787 on a trading venture. While near Limestone (now Mays- ville), Kentucky, he volunteered to go with a party in pursuit of some Indians who had stolen some horses and taken them across the Ohio river. They pursued the Indians to the vicinity of old Chillicothe, a few miles north of the site of Xenia, and there giving up the chase returned leisurely by the course of the Great Miami. He was so impressed with the beauty and fertility of the land that he began to form plans for establishing in it a colony. Soon afterward he went to New Jersey where he met Judge John Cleves Symmes, whom he interested in his plans. Judge Symmes had served as a chief justice of New Jersey and at the time was a member JUDGE SYMMES' PURCHASE. of the Continental Congress.

August 29, 1787, Judge Symmes filed the following application with congress : To His Excellency, the President of Congress-

The petition of John Cleves Symmes, of New Jersey, showeth: That your petitioner, encouraged by the resolutions of congress of the 23d and 27th of July last, stipulating the condition of a transfer of federal lands on the Scioto and Muskingum river unto Winthrop Sargent and Manasseh Cutler, Esqs., and their associates, of New England, is induced on behalf of the citizens of the United States, westward of Connecticut, who also wish to become purchasers of federal lands to pray that the honorable, the congress, will be pleased to direct that a contract be made by the honorable, the commissioners of the treasury board, with your petitioner, for himself and his associates, in all re- spects similar in form and matter to the said grant made to Messrs. Sargent and Cutler, differing only in quantity, and place where, and instead of two townships for the use of a university that one only be assigned for the benefit of an academy ; that by such transfer to your petitioners and his associates on their complying with the terms of sale, the fee may pass of all the lands lying within the following limits, viz .: Beginning at the mouth of the Great Miami river, thence running up the Ohio to the mouth of the Little Miami river, thence up the main stream of the Little Miami river to the place where a due west line, to be continued from the western termination of the northern boundary line of the grant to Messrs. Sargent, Cutler and company, shall intersect the said Little Miami river, thence due west, continuing the said western line, to the place where the said line shall intersect the main branch or stream of the Great Miami river, thence down the Great Miami to the place of beginning.

JOHN C. SYMMES. NEW YORK, August 29, 1787.

DAYTON AND MONTGOMERY COUNTY

October 2d congress "ordered that the above petition be referred to the board of treasury to take order." Under acts of October 2d, 22d, and 23d, a particular contract should have been entered into by Judge Symmes with the treasury board.

The references to Judge Symmes' relations to the government are many and so conflicting that a somewhat particular account of the same will here be given. The reason for basing a contract on the idea of two million acres, in addition to the belief that the tract included that much and more, was that an act of congress declared that the public domain should be sold to large proprietors in tracts of not less than that extent. The terms of Judge Symmes' "first contract" were fully understood and agreed to. While the government records do not contain a copy of the agreement, the following extracts from a circular of Judge Symmes, dated November 26, 1787, advertising Miami lands for sale are undoubtedly correct as far as they go into particulars :

"The conditions are, that the tract shall be surveyed, and its contents ascer- tained by the geographer or some other officer of the United States, who shall plainly mark the said east and west line, and shall render one complete plat thereof to the board of treasury, and another to the purchaser or purchasers. The pur- chaser or purchasers, within seven years from the completion of this work, (unless the frequency of Indian eruptions may render the same in a measure impractica- ble), shall lay off the whole tract at their own expense into townships, and frac- tional parts of townships, and divide the same into lots, according to the land ordinance of the 20th of May, 1785; complete returns whereof shall be made to the treasury board. The lot number 16 in each township, or fractional part of a town- ship, to be given perpetually for the purposes contained in the said ordinance. The lot number 29 in each township to be given perpetually for the purposes of re- ligion. The lots number 8, 11 and 26, in each township or fractional part of a township, to be reserved for the future disposition of congress. One complete township to be given perpetually for the purpose of an academy or college. * * *

"Such of the purchasers as may possess rights for bounties of land to the late continental army, to be permitted to render the same in discharge of the contract, acre for acre, provided that the aggregate of such rights shall not exceed one- seventh part of the land to be paid for ; * *

"The purchaser or purchasers on the payment of the first two hundred thou- sand dollars, shall have a right to enter and occupy a portion of the land not ex- · ceeding three hundred thousand acres, exclusive of the given and reserved town- ship and lots, which privilege shall be enlarged from time to time, as future pay- ments may be made by the purchasers."

The object in seeking an early sale of the land was to secure the two hundred thousand dollars which was necessary in order to give the agreement the char- acter of a contract. The price that Judge Symmes was to pay was sixty-six and two-thirds cents per acre. He offered to sell the land till the May following at the same price. The reason why he could do this was that the government would accept certificates of its own indebtedness at par aud these could be bought at such a discount as would make the cost to Judge Symmes only about sixteen cents per acre. Also soldiers' land warrants could be bought at a very low price and

JOHN CLEVES SYMMES.

DAYTON AND MONTGOMERY COUNTY

laid on the land acre for acre. Judge Symmes, instead of raising the two hundred thousand dollars necessary to bind the contract, had in June, 1788, been able to de- posit with the treasury board, in all forms, eighty-three thousand, three hundred thirty-three dollars, thirty-three and one-third cents. June 1I, 1788, he addressed the treasury board desiring "to enter into a new contract" which should be con- fined to securing one million acres lying next to the Ohio river, and extending the whole breadth between the Miamis, the terms otherwise to be the same as in the first agreement. October 22, 1788, congress had authorized the selling of land in one million-acre tracts.

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June 16th the treasury board in a letter addressed to Judge Symmes, referred to his relinquishing his "pretensions to a contract" and offered to contract with him for the sale of one million acres fronting the Ohio and forming a tract twenty miles wide along the east side of the Great Miami. There was some reason for limiting the front on the Ohio river, as one of the regulations for the sale of public lands was that the river front of tracts of land sold should not be more than one- third of the distance from a river to the interior boundary.

In a communication to the board under date of July 14th, Judge Symmes indi- cated that he might acquiesce in the form of contract proposed if no other way was open, but desired "permission to enter the premises with a number of settlers and survey the land" and make "an accurate map of the country." He added: "I am content that for the present any further progress on my second application be suspended. I have paid what I consider a sufficiency, both in money and army rights, to fulfill the first payment and until we have better knowledge I consider any further stipulations of boundaries would be rather premature." The board informed him that "they could not recede from their proposition of June 16th nor authorize him to enter on the premises previous to a payment on those con- ditions."

In a letter written July 18th to Hon. E. Boudinot he announced his intention to attempt "a lodgment before any express boundary was stipulated," and his reliance on Captain Dayton and "other Jersey delegates" to ward off official inter- ference. We see here the secret of Judge Symmes' character and of his later troubles. He was strong and honest, as he saw things. The statement, more for- cible than elegant, is true of him-that he was judge and jury and constable, all in one. Thus far Judge Symmes has been referred to as though he stood alone as a purchaser of Miami lands, but he had eminent associates, said to be twenty-four in all, among them Captain Jonathan Dayton, Hon. E. Boudinot, Major Benjamin Stites and Dr. Witherspoon. He will still often be referred to alone, so contin- ually did he occupy the whole field.

Already on December 17, 1787, Judge Symmes had signed a land-warrant in favor of Benjamin Stites for six hundred and forty acres at the point formed by the right bank of the Little Miami river and the right bank of the Ohio. Stites also had a contract entitling him to purchase ten thousand acres all along the Little Miami river. With all the difference between Judge Symmes and the treasury board he continued to sell land the entire breadth between the Miamis.

Without signing a contract he started from New Jersey the last of July, 1788, for the Miami country. The government was incensed and ordered the military to restrain him from occupying the tract in question, and threatened to annul all

DAYTON AND MONTGOMERY COUNTY

previous proceedings. His New Jersey associates sent an emissary after him who overtook him at Pittsburg and secured from him power of attorney for the signing of such agreements as might be required. General Jonathan Dayton and Daniel Marsh were made his New Jersey representatives. They were compelled to come to the government's terms limiting the purchase to a strip twenty miles wide, reckoned from the general course of the Great Miami. The contract was signed October 15, 1788. Of all this Judge Symmes did not hear till later.

Meanwhile he, with a cumbrous train, proceeded on his way to the Miami country. Reverend Manasseh Cutler, who took lodging at the same hotel with Symmes at Bedford, Pennsylvania, describes in the following entry in his journal the company and outfit of Symmes: "He had his daughter, Anna, with him, a pretty young lady, one or two women with husbands, six heavy wagons, one stage wagon and a chair, a two-wheeled covered conveyance for two persons, thirty-one horses, three carpenters, and one stone mason." Another person describing Symmes' train speaks of "thirty people and eight four-horse wagons." These ac- counts give support to each other as against some other accounts that have been current. He descended the Ohio in boats, reaching Limestone (now Maysville), Kentucky, August 22d.

EXPLORATION OF MIAMI LANDS.

Leaving some of his company and his goods at Limestone for a time, he went on by boat to the site of Cincinnati, reaching that place September 22d. He now accompanied by thirty men, chiefly Kentuckians, went on an exploring expedition into the country included in his purchase. Colonel Robert Patterson, John Filson, and Israel Ludlow were the chief associates of Symmes in this expedition. When the company reached the present northern limit of Hamilton county, Filson, one of their number, attempting to return alone, was not afterward heard from and was doubtless killed by the Indians. As the party proceeded farther they came upon a company of Indians whom the Kentuckians present proposed ruthlessly to kill. Symmes would not permit this and some of their number, being dissatisfied in consequence of this restraint, forsook the company. After proceeding as far as the southern limit of the territory of Montgomery county they returned to the point from which they started. At this time Symmes probably made a hasty visit to the mouth of the Miami where the old fort was. He now returned to Limestone where he waited a few months for supplies and means to establish his settlement at the mouth of the Miami.

FIRST SETTLEMENTS.

August 25, 1788, before some of the events just described, Matthias Denman, Robert Patterson, and John Filson had entered into an agreement for the founding of Cincinnati, the name Losantiville first having been chosen. After Filson's death his place was taken by Israel Ludlow. The land for the site had previously been purchased of Symmes by Denman. The town itself was settled, according to com- mon opinion, December 28, 1788. Columbia at the mouth of the little Miami was founded in November preceding and settlement was made by Symmes at North

DAYTON AND MONTGOMERY COUNTY

Bend February 2, 1789. He expected this place to become the chief city for the Miami region, bequeathing to it the name of Symmes City.

EXPLORATIONS AND SURVEYS.

In November, 1788, while Symmes was waiting at Limestone for supplies and soldiers and Stites was planning his colony at Columbia, Symmes devised means for sending, accompanied by soldiers, two bodies of surveyors into the land be- tween the Miamis, one party under Major Benjamin Stites to traverse the valley of the Little Miami, and the other, under Captain John Dunlap, that of the Great Miami, a distance of sixty miles. Benjamin Stites with one party of sur- veyors ran lines as far north as the ninth range, to the point where Honey creek empties into the Great Miami. The party starting up the Great Miami went up that river a distance of eighty miles and crossed over to Mad river. Surveying the section lines proceeded rapidly, the surveyors plunging into the work in the midst of the winter 1788-9. By the first of May, 1789, they were making their regular survey north of the mouth of Mad river.

In the early spring of 1789 Judge Symmes availed himself of a favorable op- portunity to cultivate friendly relations with the Indians, and at the same time gain a fuller knowledge of the remoter part of his purchase. Colonel Robert Patter- son brought to him ten Shawnee women and children taken in a raid from Kentucky on some Indian towns. These were to be exchanged for whites held by the In- dians. Judge Symmes sent a young man, Isaac Freeman, along with an Indian and an Indian boy as an interpreter, with a pack-horse and twenty days' provision to the Indian towns on the Maumee to arrange for the proposed exchange and to promote friendly relations. They were instructed to go out and come back between the Miamis, that a better knowledge of that country might be secured. A letter in reply from the "Miami warriors," dated at "Maumee, July 7th," contained strong expressions of gratification and friendship. The Indians readily returned some of their prisoners and promised to gather and return others. While Free- man was being well treated in the home of Blue Jacket he learned that the British were sending to the various bodies of Indians large stores of ammunition and that it was the intention of the Indians soon to attack the settlements. Yet these warn- ings were not given full credit by the settlers. The Indians farther removed from the whites were much different from the drunken, thieving Indians that hung close on the borders of the settlements. Young Freeman was killed while on a friendly mission to the Indians three years later.

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History of the city of Dayton and Montgomery County, Ohio, Volume I, Part 4

Author: Drury, Augustus Waldo, 1851-1935; S.J. Clarke Publishing Company, pub Publication date: 1909 Publisher: Chicago : S. J. Clarke Pub. Co. Number of Pages: 966

Author: Drury, Augustus Waldo, 1851-1935; S.J. Clarke Publishing Company, pub
Publication date: 1909
Publisher: Chicago : S. J. Clarke Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 966